What is MS PowerPoint?
How to use PowerPoint

Microsoft PowerPoint Article

What is Microsoft PowerPoint?

Microsoft PowerPoint, which started life in the early 1990s, is a software program created specifically for the creation of slides that speakers use during live presentations. It allows for content combinations of text, images, photos, diagrams, audio and video, and facilitates not only slide layout and formatting options, but animations and slide transition effects as well. Additional features, such as Presenter View and Presenter Tools, enable a speaker to interact with the content on each slide during their presentation or talk.

Slides are added to a presentation in the sequence the speaker wishes to use them during the talk. Sets of slides that make up a presentation can also be packaged as a video allowing for the creation of sharable media content. Slide shows can also be packaged as quizzes and training programs with which users interact.

What can Microsoft PowerPoint be used for?

The only limit on what you can do with MS PowerPoint is your imagination and skill in using the program. It is most frequently used to create slides for speaker presentations, but can also be used to create media content such as videos, advertisements, school and university projects, interactive storyboards and quizzes, animated stories and much more.

The best way to get the most out of PowerPoint is to get to know the program's features and functions inside-out. The more you know about all the different available options, the better you will be able to use PowerPoint creatively.

What are the benefits of using Microsoft PowerPoint to perform the above functions?

PowerPoint was specifically designed to create presentations. Although it would be possible to create visual content for a presentation using a word processing program such as Microsoft Word or a spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel, it would be much less efficient and would lack in presentation quality. PowerPoint's ease of use, intuitive program design and ability to successfully integrate text, audio, images, diagrams and video, makes it superior to non-presentation software.
Furthermore, the presentation tools and video packaging capacity of the program is unparalleled. According to Wikipedia PowerPoint is installed on over 1 billion computers, owns 95% of the presentation market share and is used by presenters around the world at an astounding estimate of 350 times per second.

What MS PowerPoint Training is best for you? Quiz - Being aware of what kind of PowerPoint user you are, what you wish to use the program for, how often you use it and at what level you currently are (for example Novice, Intermediate or Expert), could act as a guide for the type of training you need to pursue.